The curse of Daniel Jackson
by Reasonably crazy
Summary: After another visit to the infirmary, Daniel is warned that if he gets seriously injured one more time this month, he's in for a desk job. How will he pull through?
1. Que dramatic music!

Once again, Daniel Jackson was carried into the infirmary, and Dr. Janet Frasier added a tally mark to the piece of paper she had pinned to the wall by her desk.  
  
"What is it this time?" She asked, hurrying out of her office.  
  
"There was a rockslide- Daniel got the brunt of it," Samantha Carter explained as she helped Colonel Jack O'Neil and Teal'c laid his still form on the bed.  
  
Jack, Sam, and Teal'c watched as Janet gave Daniel a check-over. After a few moments she sighed, almost as if in relief.  
  
"Will Doctor Jackson recover, Dr. Frasier?" Teal'c asked.  
  
"Eventually," she told them. "He only has a few broken ribs and just some internal bleeding."  
  
Jack stared. "Only? Just? Some?"  
  
"Well, as it's Daniel, I was expecting him to have been disemboweled by the Goa'uld or something similar."  
  
"Shush!" Jack hissed. "You'll jinx him even more just by saying it!"  
  
Janet sighed and began treating Daniel's wounds. "Most people with wounds this severe would be up and going in three months or so. Expect to see him up again in six. Now you'd best leave him to me." She shooed them out of the infirmary.  
  
Five months later, Daniel stood, fully geared, with the rest of SG-1.  
  
"Hold on a minute, Dr. Jackson." General Hammond pulled Daniel aside as the Stargate whooshed to life. "Do you know what this is?" He held up a piece of paper that was black with tally marks.  
  
"Um, no," Daniel said truthfully.  
  
"This, Dr. Jackson, is the number of times you've been in the infirmary."  
  
Daniel stared, uncomprehending. "Um, that's great, General, but I've-"  
  
"Do you know how many lines are on here, Dr. Jackson?"  
  
"Um, 38?"  
  
"Try 64."  
  
"64?"  
  
"Absolutely right." General Hammond stared him down. "That's in six months, not counting the five that you were down with your major injury. Dr. Jackson, that is over twice as much as Colonel O'Neil, and three times as much as Major Carter."  
  
"What about Teal'c?" Daniel asked meekly, not liking where this was heading.  
  
Daniel soon wished that he hadn't asked. "You've been in the infirmary FIVE TIMES as much as Teal'c, Dr. Jackson."  
  
"Ah, well, General Hammond," Daniel said nervously, fairly sure that this wasn't going to be pretty. "As much as I'd enjoy continuing to discuss statistics, I need to-"  
  
"If you get seriously injured one more time, Doctor Jackson," the general interrupted, "Just ONE MORE TIME, this month- you'll be planted into a desk job."  
  
Daniel's eyes grew huge. "You wouldn't," he whispered in horror.  
  
"I would and you know it, Doctor."  
  
"How serious is serious?"  
  
"Anything worse than a broken finger, and you will not be granted any more field work- EVER. Dismissed."  
  
Yes, sir," Daniel gulped, and began walking numbly back to the ramp where the rest of SG-1 waited patiently before the open 'Gate. As he rejoined his friends, though, he began to feel a little better. After all, it shouldn't be too hard to keep from getting seriously injured for a month. Sam and Teal'c pulled it off okay- why not him? I couldn't be that difficult, could it?  
  
"What was that all about?" Jack asked.  
  
"I can't get seriously injured for the rest of the month or I'll be given a permanent desk job." Despite his recent thoughts, he still shuddered at the prospect.  
  
"He wouldn't!" Sam exclaimed.  
  
"I am sure that he would, Major Carter." Teal'c countered. "It would be wise to stay out of harm's way, Daniel Jackson."  
  
"This is SUPPOSED to be where you reassure me, guys!"  
  
"How serious is serious?" Sam asked.  
  
Daniel grimaced. "Anything worse than a broken finger."  
  
"Does this mean I shouldn't use him as the diversion at all this month?" Jack asked innocently. Sam, Teal'c, and Daniel especially stared. "You're right," Jack amended. "He probably won't make the month even WITHOUT being the diversion."  
  
Daniel glared and shoved his commanding officer through the Stargate. 


	2. Dangerous foreshadowing

"Oh, admit it, Danny," Jack continued when everyone else had arrived on the heavily forested planet, "You ARE accident prone."  
  
"I believe that would be considered an understatement," Teal'c announced.  
  
"I am not accident prone!" Daniel protested.  
  
"Fercryinoutloud, Daniel, even Teal'c agrees. Do you know there are people placing bets on when you'll be in the infirmary again?"  
  
Daniel glanced up at him suspiciously. "You don't happen to BE one of those people, are you Jack?"  
  
"Me? Heck no," Jack said casually, placing his sunglasses securely over his eyes- never mind the fact that there was no sunlight trickling through the thick canopy. "I was just stating the fact."  
  
Sam sent him a reproachful look and Teal'c raised an eyebrow as he issued a sideways glance. "What?" Jack asked innocently.  
  
Daniel decided (wisely) to let it drop. "Well, anyway, THIS time will be different. I swear that I won't so much as-" And he tripped and fell down.  
  
Sam couldn't help but to dissolve into fits of laughter as Jack and Teal'c hauled Daniel to his feet.  
  
"Smooth, Spacemonkey," Jack said coolly.  
  
"Are you injured, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked in his level tone.  
  
"Just my pride, I think," Daniel said ruefully as he regained his footing, and he waited for the sarcastic comment that he knew would come.  
  
"You were saying, Danny?" Jack prompted teasingly.  
  
Daniel gave him a hard 'ha ha, not funny,' look before walking forward briskly.  
  
Jack leaned over to Sam and Teal'c. "You think it's safe for him to be going ahead on his own like that?"  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Wonderful." Jack removed his sunglasses, finally realizing how useless they were, and looked up as the first smatterings of what promised to be a solid rain dropped from the sky. "It's raining. Can things possibly get any worse?"  
  
"I am sure that would be quite possible, Colonel O'Neil," Teal'c responded.  
  
"Yeah," Daniel added. "For example, it could start raining harder."  
  
"Thanks Daniel," Jack said dryly as it immediately began to do so.  
  
"We haven't seen a soul," Sam commented, peering around into the thick foliage. "Do you suppose it's uninhabited?"  
  
"It does seem to take longer when there's little change in scenery, but it's only been two hours or so," Daniel said reasonably.  
  
"And you've only fallen once the whole time!" Jack cried with false enthusiasm. "We're all so proud of you, Danny Boy."  
  
"Thanks, Jack."  
  
"I believe things have once again gotten worse," Teal'c  
announced.  
  
He was right. Spread out before him was a large swamp that appeared to have no end. And not an inch of it appeared to be solid ground. Joy.  
  
"Aw, Fercryinoutloud. You kids see any way around it?"  
  
"Afraid not, Sir," Sam said, looking left and right. "It stretches out in both directions; we'd have to go through it eventually. It seems that the only dry path is the way we came."  
  
"Perhaps natives used this marsh as a sort of deterrent to enemies- one would need to go through the swamp to get to and from the Stargate," Daniel suggested in excitement.  
  
"Let's follow the Yellow- Brick Road, then," Jack said cheerfully, though he made no movement.  
  
Daniel added to the pile of clichés. "Sometimes the straightest path is through the mud."  
  
Teal'c cocked an eyebrow. "Then perhaps it would be more wise to take a less straight path," he reasoned.  
  
"It's one of those clichés that we like to use, T," Jack said as he picked his way after Daniel. But suddenly, Daniel was gone- there was simply no geek to follow.  
  
he rest of SG-1 staggered across the squishy terrain to find Daniel sprawled on the ground, red welts popping up on his skin.  
  
"Well, falling twice in an hour isn't bad either," Jack said as he reached Daniel.  
  
"Two hours!" Daniel shot back defensively. "Ow! Not that hand, not that hand!" He quickly pulled away from Teal'c's assisting grasp. Jack couldn't repress an eye roll as he pulled Daniel to his feet with his other arm.  
  
"What's the matter?" Sam asked.  
  
"Nothing!" Daniel tried to brush it off. "Just an- ow- broken finger, and I fell into some type of hornets nest or something. Nothing serious."  
  
"I believe that General Hammond said that a broken finger was enough to place you in a desk job, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c reminded.  
  
"No," Daniel retorted. "HE said anything WORSE than a broken finger was serious. Emphasis on 'worse than.' Meaning that a broken finger alone is NOT serious.  
  
"Well, yeah," Sam reasoned, "but wouldn't the combination of the broken finger AND the allergic reaction to the insect stings ass up to-"  
  
"Come on, guys!" Jack burst, "Are you TRYING to get Daniel barred in at Base? The allergic reactions will clear up before we get back, and Hammond will never know. Daniel, can you cope?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine. Happens all the time." He had already placed a brace on his broken middle finger with Sam's help, and was now smearing lotion on the numerous red welts on all exposed skin.  
  
"Then it's settled," Jack said in a final tone. "Let's move."  
  
"Daniel?" Sam stopped him as he moved forward. "Maybe you should walk in back."  
  
Daniel considered this, and after a moment shrugged and moved behind Teal'c.  
  
"Good thinking, Carter," Jack said to Sam. "Everything does seem to happen to the guy in front."  
  
"Well, at least this way we can find the booby traps before Daniel walks right into them."  
  
Teal'c voice caused the two to stop and look back. "Where is Daniel Jackson?"  
  
"Oh, Fercryinoutloud! You mean he's gone? AGAIN? Where?"  
  
"I do not know. I have seen no trace of him."  
  
Jack sighed. "All right, let's make a full sweep. He probably walked into a tree or something and got himself knocked out or something." 


	3. What happened to Danny and Ooh, did some...

Daniel rubbed his sprained ankle and glared at the darkness above him. He had been following Jack, Sam, and Teal'c when something that looked like an artifact caught his eye. He had moved forward to inspect it, but right before he reached it the ground opened up, swallowed him, then closed again before he could so much as call out, much less prevent it.  
  
It was pitch black, and Daniel couldn't tell whether he had fallen into a pit or a tunnel, and didn't particularly care. He opened his mouth to call out and hope the others heard him when he saw a flickering of light from a torch. It was being carried down the tunnel by a figure- so it WAS a tunnel- and Daniel almost allowed himself to be relieved. Then he saw who bore the torch. A Horus Guard. No, five Horus Guards. Wonderful. Simply wonderful. Oh joy divine.  
  
It was a simple dirt tunnel, and there was no way he could huddle at the side and not be seen. Daniel noticed a ladder leading up to where he had fallen from, but it was much too late to try that now- he would need to limp as quickly as he could before the quintet (ooh- Quintet.) and hope to get enough of a lead to use a ladder later on.  
  
So that's what Daniel did, splendidly quietly and quickly for an injured klutz like himself. 'Come on, ladder,' he thought grimly, his ankle sending painful jolts up his leg with each step. The angry red welts caused by the alien bugs were beginning to complain as they were stirred by adrenaline, and Daniel fought to ignore them, biting his lip as he hurried on. Suddenly he came to a lighted- NOT a good sign- three-way fork. Daniel paused, painfully aware of the five armed guards bearing down on him, as he squinted down each tunnel in turn, hoping, hoping- yes! Ladder, left tunnel! He hurried forward, but stumbled on his bad ankle and went down with an incredibly audible thud.  
  
There was the none-too comforting sound of five staff weapons being charged and Daniel, all stealth forgotten, scrambled back to his feet and began climbing. He was biting his lip to the point of bleeding as his ankle and broken finger screamed as he moved up the ladder- just as the five Horuses came around the corner.  
  
Their leader didn't pause. "Jaffa! Kree!"  
  
The Horus Guards, caught unaware, made panicked, poorly-aimed shots, but one nonetheless blasted Daniel full in the shoulder of the arm that possessed the broken finger.  
  
Daniel made an interesting noise that was a blend of a cry of pain and a snarl of rage, but he didn't fall. Instead he displayed an incredible amount of strength for a skinny little scientist and pulled himself up with only one arm and one good ankle.  
  
The Bird Brains, as Daniel decided to call them, were right on top of him as he escaped the tunnel and ran bad ankle, welts, nasty terrain and all, through the march. Suddenly he skidded on a patch of some sort of slime or another, and knew instantly that there was no way that his head could avoid being brutally bashed into that particularly large and rough tree branch.  
  
'That's it. I'm screwed," Daniel thought dazedly, his one good arm- now broken, bent beneath of him at an awkward angle. Blood trickled into his eyes from the gash bestowed to his forehead from the tree branch; he blinked it away. An uncomfortable burning itch told him that he was lying in some sort of plant that he was allergic to.  
  
A Horus Guard appeared over Daniel, who peered up at him blearily through his cracked and bloody glasses lenses. "Hi," he said thickly.  
  
A second Guard appeared. "What's the point?" he asked the first. He spoke in his own language, but Daniel, being the amazing super-genius that he is, understood. "He does more torture to himself than we would do!"  
  
"You're right," the first answered. "He is a Kretcha-Ordo. Even the Sarcophagus would not cure him of his curse! He would be a damnable host."  
  
They both laughed and walked away.  
  
They WALKED AWAY.  
  
Daniel was almost insulted. "It's not my fault I'm clumsy," he muttered grouchily. He tried getting up, but he couldn't so much as move, much less stand. Daniel couldn't see much walking in his near future. He wished he could at least get some weight off the staff burn- that was by far the most painful, but it was just as well. To do that he would need to completely roll over, and then he would just get a face full of that allergic reaction- inducing plant.  
  
"Okay," He spoke out loud to himself, "Ow. I just need to-ow- wait until Jack, Sam, and Teal'c-ow- get here. Shouldn't take too-ow- long, right?"  
  
A half hour passed.  
  
"Any minute now. Ow."  
  
Another half hour.  
  
"Yup- ow. Any-ow- minute now."  
  
"OW! Yup, any minute-ow- now..... Ow! Stupid optimism. It's not-ow- working!"  
  
Finally he heard the rest of SG-1 calling for him.  
  
"What TOOK-ow- do darn long?!!" Daniel yelled.  
  
"Well, you weren't here before," Jack retorted, jogging into view.  
  
"Great. Ow! By the way, watch out for our Horus friends. OW!"  
  
"Horuses did THIS to you?" Sam said in disbelieving horror as she finally neared enough to see the extent of Daniel's injuries.  
  
"Well, -ow! - um, er, they shot me, but that's about all I can pin on them," Daniel said apologetically.  
  
"YOU did this to you?" Jack demanded. "Fercryinoutloud, Danny! Horuses- Hammond might have let this slide. But the gash, the welts, the ALLERGIES! For CRYING out LOUD!"  
  
"Are you going to help me or are you going to add "death by hypothermia" to my list of maladies?" Daniel grouched. " Because I can't move and I am COLD! OW!"  
  
"Are you in much pain, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.  
  
"Stupid question," Daniel said through his clenched jaw. "If I wasn't, I wouldn't be sounding so much like Jack."  
  
Jack stopped by Daniel's feet. "Is there anything wrong with this leg?"  
  
"Yeah, the ankle's sprained."  
  
"How about the other one?"  
  
"It's fine."  
  
Jack nodded. "Good." And he kicked him.  
  
"Ow! What was that for?"  
  
"You said that sounding like me was a bad thing!"  
  
"No I didn't!"  
  
"Boys!" Sam broke into their argument. "Daniel?"  
  
He glared at Jack. "I'd be better if certain persons would refrain from kicking me. Honestly, I'm fine as long as I don't move."  
  
"I do not believe that is an option," Teal'c warned.  
  
"Horuses- Noon O' clock! Jack warned.  
  
"Noon O' Clock?"  
  
"Shush Spacemonkey."  
  
The Guards, however, stopped when they saw Daniel on the ground. The leader laughed, called to the Stargate team in his own language, and signaled his group away.  
  
Sam and Jack stared open-mouthed as Teal'c stood by, unfazed.  
  
Jack rounded on his Jaffa friend. "Well?? What'd he say?"  
  
"He said, Colonel O'Neil-"  
  
Daniel cringed. "Teal'c, do you have to?"  
  
Teal'c ignored him. "-That all who associated themselves with one so cursed-" everyone's eyes flicked to Daniel- "Could never be worthy enough to become hosts."  
  
At this message, Sam almost laughed.  
  
"See, Danny Boy?" Jack asked with an air of one who had known something all along, "There's an upside to being a time bomb!"  
  
"Shut up, Jack," Daniel groused. "PLEASE someone get me out of these plants? I'm getting a rash." 


	4. The wrath of General Hammond

General Hammond stared incredulously down at the infirmary cot that contained Daniel Jackson. As usual. "Doctor Jackson. Please enlighten us on how you reached this predicament."  
  
Daniel sighed as the rest of SG-1 (yes, even Teal'c) looked more interested- Daniel hadn't actually told them HOW he had come by his injuries. "I lost my balance in the marsh and fell into some alien hornets nest. That accounts for the numerous red marks. Also during that time I broke my finger. When investigating what may have been an artifact, I triggered some sort of trap door and fell into a Goa'uld tunnel and I sprained my ankle."  
  
Jack rolled his eyes. "Trust Daniel to hurt himself while looking at rocks."  
  
Daniel ignored him. "The tunnels, by the way, are nothing remotely similar to the Tok'ra's, if you wanted to know. A group of Horuses were coming my way, so I had to run in front of them as there was no place to hide. I discovered a ladder, and as I tried to use it to escape the Horuses came and I was shot in the shoulder. However, I did not fall, but I continued climbing. When I got to the surface I ran as best I could as the Horuses were still right behind me, but I slipped on some algae and collided with nice mister tree. See forehead. I landed in some plant similar to poison ivy, where I broke my arm and received my rash- and hypothermia, I'm sure- and my back injury."  
  
"Gee, is that all?" Jack asked sarcastically.  
  
"Janet says you'll be able to walk again- you just pinched a nerve in your back," Sam told Daniel.  
  
"How did you avoid capture after that, when you couldn't move?" The general asked.  
  
"Well, Um. . . Hey, I think I may have amnesia!"  
  
"Doctor Jackson," Hammond warned.  
  
"Uh, well, Sir," Daniel blushed, "They, um, found me and said- they said that I was 'cursed' and I would only damn the Larvae; they called me an, um, Kretcha-Ordo, but I don't know what it means," he finished in a rush.  
  
"In your terms, it is an equivalent of 'bloody idiot,'" Teal'c supplied.  
  
The General dropped all formal pretenses and all but shouted at Daniel, "So they basically said you're too damn pathetic and they LEFT YOU?!?!"  
  
"Pretty much," Daniel said meekly.  
  
"His circumstance also prevented Teal'c, the colonel, and I from getting captured as well," Sam broke in, hoping that Daniel might avoid certain death by boredom because he had assisted in their escape.  
  
"How?" Hammond demanded.  
  
"The Guards present said that those who associated with one as 'cursed' as Daniel Jackson could never become worthy hosts," Teal'c supplied.  
  
Story completed, Daniel looked anxiously up at General Hammond like a criminal waiting for his sentence.  
  
"He DID keep us from getting captured," Sam repeated.  
  
"How many guards were there?"  
  
"Well, only two at the time, Sir, but-"  
  
"Would you have been able to fight them off if they HAD attacked, meaning Daniel was actually no assistance?"  
  
"Well, possibly sir, but-"  
  
"I've made my decision," General Hammond announced, effectively ending all argument. "Doctor Jackson, as of right now you are re-assigned. You are not to travel off-world except in the highly unlikely event that I say so. Dismissed."  
  
"Sir!" Jack started angrily, "Daniel's our linguist! What are we supposed to do without him?"  
  
"Sir," Carter pleaded, "Daniel is often able to connect with native cultures better than any of us! How-"  
  
"By adapting!" The general thundered. "All those are secondary when it comes to Doctor Jackson's health! He's proven to be a bomb with a time loop so it can explode all over again!"  
  
"Doctor Jackson is human, general, not a bomb, and has proven himself to be a warrior when necessary," Teal'c said in Daniel's defense.  
  
"NO!" the Hammond yelled. "He's off the team, and that's final! Dismissed!" And he stalked from the infirmary.  
  
"He'll just die of paper cuts!" Jack yelled after him, and slammed the door shut in a foul mood.  
  
"Well, at least I get to brood about it in MY bed, here in the infirmary, until I can walk- as I can't very well use crutches with my arm, now can I?" Daniel said bitterly, not really caring about the guilt trip he was springing on his friends.  
  
"We're really sorry, Daniel," Sam said sympathetically. "We tried."  
  
"Yeah, I know," Daniel said no less bitterly. "You had all better go; I need to prepare myself for my new very demanding job."  
  
Not really having much else to say, they filed out one by one. 


	5. the Office Job and the dangers it posses...

A week or so later, Daniel's ankle had healed enough to allow him to walk from his desk to his coffee machine and back, which was good enough for Dr. Frasier.  
  
Daniel sat at his desk and surveyed the large mound of things to translate and other such information from the SG teams that he needed to thumb through.  
  
"Joy," he thought sarcastically. "I may as well get started." He reached for the topmost folder, flipped it open, and winced as a sheet of paper sliced across his thumb. "Paper cut," Daniel said unnecessarily. "Evil creation spawned from the pits of-"  
  
He dug around the disaster that was his office, and decided that either his Band-Aid stash had been stolen by the Band-Aid Gremlins or he had used them all up. Either way, he was resigned to going back to the infirmary much sooner than he would have liked.  
  
"Back so soon?" Janet Frasier asked, eyebrows raised, when Daniel appeared through the door.  
  
"Paper cut," Daniel explained apologetically.  
  
"I see. Should I prepare an IV?"  
  
Daniel pulled off a wan smile. "No, I just need a Band-Aid. Got any?"  
  
It being the infirmary, of COURSE there were Band-Aids, and so it was with a convenient flesh-colored bandage wrapped around his thumb that Daniel Jackson returned to his office and reopened the report.  
  
It was from SG-1. He fought down a pang and looked through what they needed translated. The language was rather confusing; a mixture of Goa'uld, Ancient Babylonian, and- Spanish? Oh, how Daniel would have LOVED to be at that planet! They had never encountered Spanish before; he could only IMAGINE what artifacts might have been there, what sort of-  
  
Daniel shook himself and proceeded to translate. It was fascinating. It talked about a sacred artifact called "The Doorway." Daniel would have done anything to be there!  
  
Feeling himself begin to get lost in memories, he moved quickly to shut the folder, earning himself another paper cut. On a random whim, he squeezed a drop of blood onto the sheet he'd been translating, and, knowing it would turn up at a briefing at one time or another, wrote "with love, from Daniel" underneath. Jack would get a kick out of it, and it would hopefully cause General Hammond some guilt.  
  
Finger in mouth, Daniel considered all his miserable luck as he wandered back to the infirmary.  
  
"Again?" Janet said in disbelief. In addition to the one for his current cut, Janet sent five extras back with him.  
  
By the end of the hour he was wearing them all. By the end of the day there was little actual flesh visible. By then end of the week it was difficult for Daniel to move his hands at all, so layered with bandages they were.  
  
There were Band-Aids on his arms and face also, marking where he had run out of coffee and fallen asleep on his work.  
  
"Really," Janet joked, "You may have been safer off world!"  
  
Daniel thought about that. Maybe, if he could prove that the office was just as dangerous as it was off world. . . And then, without actually knowing or realizing it, Daniel just gave up trying to prevent office injuries.  
  
The next day he stapled his thumb, tripped over his wastebasket and cracked his head on the desk, earning him a broken toe, a slight concussion, and a very sore thumb. Somehow later that week he knocked over his filing cabinet onto himself and broke his only good leg. A week and several paper cuts (of course) later, his bookshelf became unbalanced and toppled over. In that accident, he was knocked from his wheelchair and pinned beneath the heavy shelf for several hours until he was found. He escaped that with a fresh wave of paper cuts and a few cracked ribs.  
  
A few days after that he preformed the classic "stapling-of-the-thumb" again. When he was accidentally bumped from behind the same day, he went hurtling down a flight of stairs. The day he got out of the infirmary after that catastrophic event, he broke his own nose while wrestling to open a door, reeled back in pain, and quite effectively flipped his wheelchair. He repeated that entire process two days later and re-broke the arm that had been healing.  
  
Janet finally put her foot down and had Daniel locked in the infirmary, and tethered him to HIS bed when he wouldn't stop trying to get up, insisting he was fine. His bed promptly collapsed.  
  
"Maybe those Jaffa were right," she told Daniel as she and her assistants tried to find a way to get him out of the mangled metal. "Maybe you ARE cursed." They finally decided there was no way to do it without inducing pain, and simply heaved him out.  
  
"I never thought you were one to believe in curses, Doctor," Daniel gasped.  
  
"I sat on that very bed earlier," She told him, "and it didn't so much as shudder once." 


	6. SUSPENSE!

"Hey Spacemonkey." Jack appeared at the door.  
  
"Hey Jack," Daniel tried to grin.  
  
Jack looked at his friend and whistled. "No wonder you didn't want an office job- I never knew the dangers!"  
  
"They're only dangers to Daniel!" Janet called from the other side of the room.  
  
But Jack wasn't done. "You're safer with the Goa'uld than you are with yourself!"  
  
"Yeah- do me a favor and mention that to Hammond for me. I've tried to chase him down on my wheelchair, but he walks too fast."  
  
Jack cracked a grin. "Really, Daniel, one would think that you're self- abusive or something. Or just very fond of a very special lady. . ."  
  
Daniel glared.  
  
"Well, everything seems to happen to you, doesn't it," Jack resumed the original subject.  
  
Daniel grimaced. "Well, you need a new SG team member for that now, don't you? And as the current holder of the title, I pass it to you. Bear it proudly, 'Jack, the Accident Prone.'"  
  
"Thanks Danny, that means a lot to me," Jack said dryly.  
  
General Hammond rapped on the doorframe suddenly and entered.  
  
"So you're NOT avoiding me!" Daniel exclaimed brightly. Maybe he was hanging around with Jack too much.  
  
General Hammond tried to ignore Daniel, but that task was made rather difficult by the fact that he had gone there to speak with him. "Doctor Jackson, I heard you had another catastroph- mishap. I needed to make sure that you are still alive."  
  
"I am," Daniel said unnecessarily. Yup, DEFINITELY too much time with Jack.  
  
The general began to think out loud. "You aren't really doing much better in your current position, but I don't enjoy firing someone with your brilliance- you know too much anyway. . . Maybe I'll just assign you to the kitchens or something."  
  
Daniel looked as though the general had suggested handing him over freely to the Goa'uld.  
  
"Oh, no, Sir," Jack moaned to Daniel's benefit, "Not with all the knives . . .!"  
  
"Point taken, Colonel O'Neil." "General," Daniel pleaded, "I'm not doing any better here. In fact, I'm doing WORSE here. I go to the infirmary at least once a day! SG-1 suffers without me- PLEASE put me back on SG-1!!"  
  
Hammond looked down at Daniel and his whipped-puppy expression and sighed. "I'll consider it." He walked out.  
  
Jack looked down at his friend and shrugged. "That's the best you're going to get for now, Danny-Boy. I have to go." Right before he reached the door, he stopped and looked back. "Oh, and nice translation."  
  
Daniel sighed and wished he could leave just as easily.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
It was another week until Daniel saw General Hammond, and as Janet had refused release the archeologist, it was in the infirmary where they met again.  
  
"Doctor Jackson, I've made my decision."  
  
Daniel looked up at him hopefully.  
  
"Against my better judgment-"  
  
Daniel's heart leapt- this HAD to be a good thing-  
  
"-I've decided to fire you. As soon as you are well, I want you out of this facility."  
  
Daniel's jaw dropped. The heart monitor that Janet insisted upon using flat-lined for five seconds.  
  
"Just kidding!" Hammond burst. "As soon as you are healed, you are to be reassigned to the SG-1 team!" He left.  
  
Daniel stared after him, jaw slack and face pale from shock. "That. . . Is a cruel. . . cruel man. . . .Janet- fetch the Smelling Salts." And he fainted.  
  
~END!!!~ 


End file.
